Hate-Preacher Admits Christians Aren’t “Experiencing Serious Persecution”

It’s been a while since I’ve posted about Christian hate-preacher Steven Anderson.

That’s mostly because every time he tries to upload a new sermon on YouTube… the site rightly blocks the video for hate-speech or shuts down the entire channel for violating its terms of service. Back in September, I posted about how the leader of Arizona’s (New Independent Fundamentalist) Faithful Word Baptist Church had been posting those sermons on a variety of smaller YouTube channels — or having his followers post them for him — to get around YouTube’s ban on his own page. It didn’t work.

That’s not to say he can’t find new outlets. But his reach has significantly diminished. At this point, it’s like playing Whac-A-Mole. Still, he gave a Father’s Day sermon yesterday, full of his typical bile and bigotry.

But one part of that sermon surprised me.

He admitted that, contrary to what right-wing evangelicals love to say, Christians don’t actually face any persecution right now. Real persecution, he argued, was the inability to preach the Bible, not losing a bakery because you don’t want to sell goods to same-sex couples. And even Joe Biden wasn’t stopping him from running his church.

… You know what? I know… that, today, I can get up and preach the word of God today, and nobody’s here to stop me. I can get up and thunder forth the word of God and scream and yell the truths of scripture as loud as I want, and broadcast it all over the Internet to the whole world, and you know what? Nobody’s here to stop me, are they? So that’s all that matters. Yeah, but what about next week? What if Biden gets a second term?

Do you see what I mean? It’s just stupid to just worry about stuff that never even happens. I mean, I remember when Obama got elected, it was supposed to be the end of the world, too. Eight years of Obama and here we are. Right? I mean, how much can creepy Uncle Joe actually do to us? And, you know, the worst thing he can do to me is kill me, and then I’ll just go straight to heaven. And guess what? Creepy Uncle Joe’s not even talking about killing me. That’s not gonna happen.

You know, we’re not even experiencing serious persecution in America at all. You know, today, the big persecution in America is like, “Oh, this bakery was forced to bake a cake for homos.”

…

No, I’m not gonna go underground. But it’s like people are talking about going underground in America in 2021 when we’re not even being persecuted. We’re at, like, out of 100, we’re at, like, Persecution Level 3. Out of 100.

…

… There was no forced vaccinations. All of these bogeymen that people are constantly scared of, you know, they don’t even end up happening most of the time!

It’s weird to hear a bit of common sense coming from someone known for his theological insanity.

Let’s be clear, though. It’s not that he suddenly sees the truth; it’s that he thinks right-wing evangelicals aren’t extreme enough. He wants them being more hateful, and more antagonistic, and more bigoted. If they lose their careers or friendships, who cares? The only thing that matters in life is spreading the Gospel.

That’s why the persecution they always cite are small potatoes for someone like Anderson, whose hate-speech has led to him being banned from entering 34 countries. He sees that as a badge of honor and he doesn’t understand why so many other Christians are too cowardly to join him.